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x
l
ss
l
ss
is the characteristic gradient length and the preplasma density therefore goes from 1% to 100% of 50n
c
over 4.6l
ss
.
The target is fully-ionized hydrogen. The numerical parameters and boundary conditions used are similar to those of
the previous section.
All simulations have been run to roughly 600 fs after the peak of the laser pulse reaches the target front surface, a
point where we are condent that subsequent evolution of ion peak energy will not qualitatively change our conclu-
sions. For all the pulse durations we considered, we plot in Figs. 2a) and 2b) the maximum proton energy at t =500 fs
and the absorption as a function of pulse duration,
p
. For both target proles, we notice a steady increase of absorp-
tion with pulse duration: from 50% for
p
=30 fs to 70% for
p
=300 fs for the smooth-edge target, and even larger
variations for the sharp-edge target, from 22% for the shortest pulses to 70% for the longest ones. In comparison, the
variations of the maximum proton energy are more subtle. For smooth-edge targets, it rst increases slightly from
11 to 13 MeV between
p
= 30 fs and 84 fs, then decreases down to 8 MeV as the pulse duration becomes longer.
A similar trend is observed for the other target prole, but the peak proton energy now only reaches roughly 10 MeV
at
p
=219 fs before decreasing for larger pulse durations.
202 E. Lefebvre et al. / C. R. Physique 10 (2009) 197206
3.2. Discussions
During the rising edge of the pulse, signicant electron heating starts around 10
17
W/cm
2
and the hot electrons
expand around the target. When the laser pulse duration increases, the front surface plasma heated by the rising edge
of the pulse has more time to expand before the peak intensity hits the target. As the electron density gradient length
increases at the front side, absorption increases [32,19] and more electrons are heated to high temperature. This effect
is more apparent for the sharp-edge targets, for which no preplasma is initially present. These heated electrons travel
through the target, come out at the rear side and expand into the vacuum, creating an electrostatic eld which starts
accelerating protons located at the back surface. Thus, protons begin to be accelerated before the arrival of the peak
of the pulse at the target front surface. This early proton acceleration creates a density gradient expanding from the
back surface into vacuum. This gradient is known to diminish the strength of the electrostatic eld seen by the protons
located at the back surface [22,33]. In Fig. 2c), the back surface gradient length at the time of peak intensity is plotted
as a function of the laser pulse duration for both target proles. It can be seen that the gradient length increases with
p
. This is related to the expansion time of protons which becomes larger when the laser pulse duration increases.
This gradient created at the rear side should hamper proton acceleration [22]. However one can notice fromFigs. 2a)
and 2b) that the maximumproton energy rst increases with
p
before decreasing. We are actually facing a competition
between absorption, screening by the rear side density gradient, and variations in the characteristic energy exchange
time between electrons and protons. While the gain in proton energy due to absorption is higher than the loss due to
electrostatic shielding at the rear surface, the maximum proton energy increases. On the contrary, when the energy
gain due to absorption cannot overcome the loss due to shielding anymore, we observe a decrease in the maximum
proton energy. This balance points out to the existence of an optimum pulse duration. This optimum is found to be
relatively weak, and depends on the details of the interaction: for instance, it varies from 84 fs to 219 fs when the
target prole is changed from smooth-edge to sharp-edge in the above calculations.
3.3. Conclusion
In this study of pulse duration inuence on ion acceleration, as well as more detailed analyses that will be published
elsewhere [18], we identied three processes through which a variation of pulse duration inuences the maximum
proton energy: the preplasma expansion at the front side of the target [17], the early rear side expansion due to
electron heating before the arrival of the pulse peak, and the acceleration time. We have shown that despite strong
variations of each of these parameters, they eventually combine to result in relatively moderate variations of the peak
proton energy as a function of pulse duration.
4. Isochoric heating with protons
To ensure uniform ion energy deposition through a thin target, it is possible to take advantage of the variations of
the proton stopping power with energy. Ions are known to deposit their energy more efciently towards the end of
their range, in the so-called Bragg peak, whereas the stopping power variations at high energy are relatively moderate.
A palatable idea is then to tailor the accelerated ion distribution in order to suppress low-energy protons and make sure
that all protons incident on the second target are energetic enough to be transmitted through it with little variations of
their stopping power along the target thickness. Modication of the proton spectrum has been predicted or observed
to result from a variation of the deposited proton layer at the target rear surface, from a variation of the proton doping
fraction in multi-ion species targets [34], and from a variation of the proton layer radius when 2D geometry effects
are concerned. We will review below the effect of these parameters.
4.1. Proton acceleration
We will rst use the CALDER code to compute proton acceleration in 2D geometry off a thin, dense target, with
various types of proton layers deposited on its back surface. In all these calculations, the incident laser pulse has a
0.8 m wavelength, is linearly polarized and incident from the lower left corner of the simulation box in p polarization,
with an angle of 45
on target. The pulse duration is 65 fs full width at half maximum (FWHM) and the focal
spot diameter is 8 m FWHM. The normalized laser eld amplitude is a
0
= 1.6, corresponding to an intensity of
E. Lefebvre et al. / C. R. Physique 10 (2009) 197206 203
Fig. 3. Laser intensity and ion densities (heavy ions and protons) throughout the simulation at t =93, 245, 361, and 513 fs.
Fig. 4. Proton bunch densities at the end of the simulations (t =513 fs) for three initial proton layer diameters: 13, 51, and 77 m. (The top of the
color scale is at 0.1n
c
.) The initial proton layer position is x =16.4 m.
5.5 10
18
W/cm
2
. This laser pulse is incident onto a 140 nm-thick, 100 n
c
bulk target, with an ion mass-to-charge
ratio equal to ten times that of protons.
In a rst series of simulations, we considered a proton layer of 10 nm thickness at the back surface of this target,
with a density of 10 n
c
, and varied its radial extent between 13, 18, 51, and 77 m the latter value being equal to
the whole transverse dimension of the simulation box. In a second series of simulations, we kept the diameter of the
proton layer equal to 18 m, but varied instead its density, from 5 to 50 n
c
. In a last simulation, the proton layer was
replaced by a homogeneous mixture of heavy ions and protons throughout the whole target, with a 1% fraction of
protons.
The simulation setup and geometry are illustrated in the rst panel of Fig. 3, where the incident laser pulse and
target ion densities are superimposed early in the simulation, at t =93 fs. The incident pulse has barely reached the
solid target and the proton layer cannot be distinguished from the heavy substrate. Later on, in the second panel taken
at t =245 fs, the incident laser pulse has been fully reected or absorbed, and the protons have moved within 2 m
from their initial location. In the last two panels, at 361 and 513 fs, the proton layer becomes fully detached from the
substrate, as all protons become accelerated to nite energy. The layer becomes thicker and less dense as it accelerates,
because the accelerating eld is not uniform longitudinally throughout the layer. It also picks up some curvature, due
to a similar transverse inhomogeneity.
When the proton layer diameter and density are varied, the parameters of the accelerated proton bunch can change
drastically. The shapes of the proton bunch at the end of the simulations for three diameters are plotted in Fig. 4.
Relatively homogeneous acceleration can be given to layers that are transversely limited to a few times the incident
laser spot. For larger dimensions, the transverse variations of the accelerating eld lead to strong inhomogeneities
in the proton bunch, with some particles located more than 20 m from the center of the target that can be barely
accelerated. This difference is even more visible when the proton layer initially extends across the whole target rear
surface. Its outer edges are then clearly unable to detach from the substrate, whereas all the protons located just behind
the laser impact on target are accelerated to more than 1 MeV. Note that the slight topdown asymmetry in Figs. 3
204 E. Lefebvre et al. / C. R. Physique 10 (2009) 197206
Fig. 5. Proton energy distributions at the end of the simulations (t =513 fs) for three initial proton layer densities: 5, 10, and 50 n
c
.
and 4 can be attributed to the imperfect vertical alignment between the center of the proton layer, the center of the
simulation box, and the laser impact on target.
Consistent with these observations, the proton energy distributions for the wide or dense layers show broad spectra
extending up to zero kinetic energy, where a maximum number of particles are located. On the other hand, for small
enough layers (13 and 18 m diameters) as well as for the lower proton layer densities (5 and 10 n
c
), a non-zero
minimum cutoff energy is observed, and the position of this cutoff is found to increase when thinner or less dense
proton layers are used. This trend is clearly apparent in the three panels of Fig. 5 where the distributions are compared
for a 18 m diameter layer at 5, 10, and 50 n
c
density. But one also observes that as the minimum energy cutoff moves
to higher values, the overall number of protons at a given energy is also reduced. In other words, using thinner and
thinner proton layer densities enables to produce proton bunches without the low-energy particles that are detrimental
for uniform energy deposition, but at the same time this acceleration is less and less efcient.
Finally, let us mention that if the last target type, in which the protons are uniformly distributed inside the substrate
initially, does indeed lead to a spectrum showing some modulations as previously reported [34], the overall efciency
and high-energy particle numbers are even lower, and a large amount of low-energy protons can still be observed,
suggesting that this type of targets is not appropriate for heating experiments without due optimization.
4.2. Heating of a thin aluminum layer
The canonical secondary target that we consider below is a 10 m aluminum target, a case already considered
experimentally. The front surface of this target is separated by 246 m of vacuum from the back of the laser-irradiated,
proton-producing target. We use here the CMC particle transport code to compute the propagation and slowing-down
of protons in this solid target, and the energy they deposit along their paths. This code and the stopping powers it
uses have been documented in a previous publication [16]. The self-consistent evolution of stopping powers as a
function of target heating and ionization is not accounted for here: only the cold stopping powers for aluminum are
used [35]. Protons accelerated in the CALDER PIC calculations are input in the CMC calculation with their specic
positions and momenta. Their trajectories are then followed until they hit the target, slow down and deposit part of
their kinetic energy in the aluminum layer. Typical proton trajectories and a map of the resulting deposited energy are
plotted in Fig. 6a), corresponding to the above PIC calculation with a 10 n
c
, 18 m diameter proton layer at the back
surface of the laser-irradiated target. High energy protons arrive rst on target and are energetic enough to be rapidly
transmitted. Therefore, energy deposition at the front and rear target surfaces initially follow similar variations. Later
on, as lower-energy protons reach the secondary target, these particles are not energetic enough to be transmitted
through the target. Therefore, the front and rear surface specic energies are decoupled, with the front surface being
heated for several more picoseconds by low-energy protons. This trend is apparent in Fig. 6b), where the variations
of specic energies with time are plotted for the peak value across the target, and two points close to the laser axis on
the front and rear surfaces.
With little surprise, we observe that similar coupled calculations for lower-density proton layers, as considered in
Fig. 5, lead to less decoupling between the target front and rear surfaces, as less low-energy protons are present in
E. Lefebvre et al. / C. R. Physique 10 (2009) 197206 205
Fig. 6. (a) Trajectories of protons emitted by the laser-irradiated target (not shown), that propagate from its back surface and heat the secondary
aluminum target; the color code indicates the specic energy deposited in the target; (b) Specic energy deposited in the aluminum layer by the
incident proton beam. Peak value (red) and values on two points at the front and back target surfaces.
the incident beam. For instance, the ratio of front to back surface specic energies is E
front
/E
back
2.5 in Fig. 6b),
obtained for a 10 n
c
, 18 m diameter proton layer at the rst target back surface. This ratio increases to E
front
/
E
back
> 4 for a 20 n
c
layer, and decreases to roughly 2 for a 5 n
c
layer. However, as the mismatch between front and
rear surfaces is reduced with lower layer densities, so is also the absolute value of specic energy, as less protons are
incident on the secondary target.
5. Conclusions
Proton acceleration from the rear surface of thin laser-irradiated solid foils depends on a number of parameters
such as target density prole and thickness, laser intensity, energy, pulse duration, polarization and angle of incidence.
The intricacies of these dependences only begin to be elucidated. Two strategies for optimizing the peak proton energy
were followed in this article. We rst showed that under certain conditions, a controlled low-intensity prepulse could
be helpful by preforming a smooth density prole at the irradiated surface of the target and hence increasing the
high-intensity laser absorption. Our calculations suggest that the maximum delay between the low- and high-intensity
pulses should be used that is compatible with an unperturbed target back surface. Alternatively, lengthening the high-
intensity pulse duration, even if it comes at the expense of its peak intensity, may also increase the peak proton energy
as the early part of the pulse heats up the front target surface and increases the absorption of the trailing part. Some
optimum pulse duration can be found for which this effect dominates the reduction of proton energy due to screening
of the back surface electrostatic eld by the density gradient that also develops there.
Some preliminary calculations of heating by these laser-produced proton beams were nally reported. They showed
that a low-energy cutoff can be created in the proton distribution by reducing the proton layer radius and density, albeit
at the expense of the overall acceleration efciency. Proton layers that are either too thick or larger than a few times
the laser spot radius lead to proton distributions that show no low-energy cutoff and therefore result in very non-
uniform energy deposition in the secondary target. On the other hand, using properly optimized proton-producing
targets irradiated with typical 30 fs laser pulses at a few Joule level, one should be able to heat aluminum to GJ/kg
specic energy with interesting uniformity across 5 m-thick samples.
206 E. Lefebvre et al. / C. R. Physique 10 (2009) 197206
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